New RFA for Diagnostics and Treatments

The Solve ME/CFS Initiative is intensifying its efforts to build a critical mass of rigorous research that validates the biological basis for CFS and leads to improved methods for diagnosis and treatment. We are putting research first to achieve the vision of a future in which the life-altering disability, stigma and isolation of CFS no longer exist.

Today, April 6, 2011, we issue a Request for Applications (RFA) to solicit research proposals that will advance objective diagnosis and effective treatment of CFS. (Read the RFA.)

This RFA has been e-mailed directly to more than 500 researchers who have conducted CFS research in the past or whose areas of expertise could facilitate discoveries in CFS. It will also be:

distributed by the International Association for CFS/ME and the ME Association (United Kingdom);

posted to several research grant sites, including Science magazine and Community of Science; and

circulated to researchers participating in this week’s ME/CFS State of the Knowledge Workshop at the National Institutes of Health and next week’s Pain Consortium Conference at NIH.

The Solve ME/CFS Initiative’s first disbursement in 1987 was a grant to fund clinical research. Since then, we have provided $5.3 million in direct support of research studies and co-sponsored research conferences, symposia and meetings. A year ago, the Association established the SolveCFS BioBank to collect and store a bank of biological samples (such as blood and DNA) and clinical information from individuals diagnosed with CFS and healthy individuals (controls) aged 10 and older.

The RFA issued today represents the most recent commitment to our strategy to stimulate research aimed at the early detection, objective diagnosis and effective treatment of CFS through expanded public, private and commercial investment. We look forward to reporting on the response to the RFA and to sharing more news with you soon about all the ways in which we’re putting research first.